Forensic psychiatric care must be provided within the least restrictive setting possible, whilst simultaneously maintaining appropriate levels of security. This presents particular challenges for the design of forensic psychiatric hospitals, which are required to provide both a therapeutic and a safe material environment, often for extended periods of treatment and rehabilitation. By taking into consideration variable trends in psychiatric service provision and myriad clinical, legal and ethical issues, interdisciplinary forensic facility design teams are at the very forefront in implementing the latest developments in medical architecture. Also, although there are significant differences in how forensic psychiatric services are organized around the world, the underlying clinical challenges and increasingly research-based treatment principles are similar worldwide; it is therefore becoming less acceptable to operate and develop national forensic services without reference to international standards. Accordingly, we here review the literature on what features of forensic psychiatric facilities best serve the needs of those patients who need to rely on them, and we present a systematic and widely applicable approach to the complex and costly challenge of modern forensic psychiatric hospital design.

The Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) is a 34-item self-report measure designed to monitor changes in psychiatric patients. It has been translated into 25 languages, including Finnish. This is the first psychometric exploration of Finnish CORE-OM data. The aim of the study is to examine acceptability, internal consistency and convergent validity of the Finnish CORE-OM scores. Translation of the CORE-OM from English to Finnish was undertaken according to recommended protocols. Psychometric exploration was conducted in two samples: psychiatric patients (N = 201) and non-clinical participants (N = 209). Participation was voluntary and involved completion of all scales. Convergent validity was tested in terms of the mean score differences between clinical and non-clinical samples and correlations against the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90). Among the clinical sample, all domains showed good or acceptable internal reliability. In the non-clinical sample, the alphas of domains were good or acceptable, with only the alphas of the Risk domain registering as low. There were no marked gender or age effects. CORE-OM scores correlated strongly with both the BDI and SCL-90, particularly in patients' data. Some possible effects of Finnish language were found. The Finnish translation of the CORE-OM is psychometrically sound and can be recommended for use in Finnish mental health and clinical settings. However, further investigation in larger and different samples will clarify the generalizability its psychometric properties. Clinical services are encouraged to contribute to the creation of a collaborative Finnish CORE practice research network.